


The fine art of running away

by Kalya_Lee



Series: All The Days That Never Came [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU (Canon Divergence), Gen, The one where Donna is Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1302874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalya_Lee/pseuds/Kalya_Lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He slips his hand into hers and whispers, “Run.”<br/>On hindsight, probably not his best move.<br/>“Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?” she snaps, “Because I don’t take well to threats. What are you, some sort of thug? And you can keep your hands off me, thanks.”</p><p>Nine meets Donna. Sparks fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He slips his hand into hers and whispers, “ _Run._ ”

On hindsight, probably not his best move.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?” she snaps, scowling and wrenching her hand free and, aggravatingly, _not running_. “Because I don’t take well to threats. What are you, some sort of thug? And you can keep your hands _off_ me, thanks.”

He gapes at her, then at the figures advancing towards them, hand-guns raised. Back at her. Back at impending doom. He sighs. “Look, lady,” he says, perfectly reasonable, “if you _want_ to get murdered by little plastic men in knockoff jeans, that’s your business. I’m just trying to save your life over here.”

There’s a long, tense silence. The plastic continues to approach, and really, this is getting ridiculous. He weighs the merits of knocking her out and dragging her away against the likelihood of having a facefull of pepper spray clog up his respiratory bypass. He’s not sure he wants to risk it.

She eyes his jacket suspiciously. He glares and peels it off.

“Right,” she says, at long last, and takes off at a jog.

***

“I’m the Doctor, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Donna Noble.”

“Nice to meet you, Donna Noble. Run for your life!”

“No, wait, what are you – you can’t just – _Oi!_ ”

***

Donna takes the plastic arm home, because it’s not like she could just leave it lying in the middle of the street. And it could be useful, who knows. For hanging coats and things.

There is a knock on the door.

“Hello,” says the Doctor, grinning madly. He waggles his fingers at her, and she lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Hello,” says Donna. “You again. I’ve been wondering. Where, exactly, did you get your degree?”

The Doctor’s face falls. Donna plants her hands on her hips.

The plastic arm chooses this moment to leap for his throat.

“Oh, typical man,” grumbles Donna, heading to the kitchen for a frying pan. “You’re all useless.”

***

 “I told you to _stop following me_.”

They are still being chased. Donna is glad she thought to bring flats.

 “And then you blew up a building! People don’t listen to people who _blow up buildings_!”

“They do if they’re stupid apes – _Ow!_ ”

“Oh, shut it and run.”

***

“You know,” says the Doctor, shuffling his feet, “you could always come with me.”

Donna eyes his blue box with some suspicion. It seems to be a default state, with her. “Nah,” she says. “Not in there. Too weird.”

“Okay,” the Doctor says, looking like a leather-clad kicked puppy, and closes the door.

She turns, slowly, with just a hint of regret. Time to head home, then. _Cup of tea_ , she thinks, _and a shower, and – what is that_ noise _?_

“You know,” says the Doctor, hopefully, “It also travels in – “

“Oh, alright then,” says Donna, and breezes inside.

***

“Hello,” says the tree woman. “Is this your wife? Concubine?”

“What,” says the Doctor, big ears turning pink. “No. Oh, no. No no no. No.”

“He’s all yours, twiggy,” adds Donna, helpfully, and walks away.

***

“So. Not from Mars, then.”

“Nope.”

“Venus?”

“Nope.”

“Jupiter?”

“And no.”

“You do realize that once I run out of planets I’ll just start making them up.”

“It’s,” he says, then stops. He looks at her, eyes dark and longing, and something in her softens. “It’s called Gallifrey, actually.”

Donna steps forward, leans her shoulder against his. This jacket’s not so bad, really. Soft. Kind of nice to lean into. “Is it… is it nice?”

“It’s gone.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s sincere, and she hopes he knows it. They stand there for a moment and watch the Earth burn.

“Yeah.”

***

“Twelve hours,” he says, grinning at her. “You’ve seen the future and the past – “

“And nearly been killed both times.”

“ – and you’ve been gone twelve hours, yes.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that, spaceman?”

He huffs, offended. “Are you doubting me, Donna?”

“Did we, or did we not, end up in Cardiff the last time you aimed for London?”

“Look, if it got you to meet Charles Dickens….”

“And did we, or did we not, nearly get murdered by gas lamps? In Cardiff? Instead of London?”

The Doctor sighs, put-upon, but goes to check the calendar anyway.

***

“EXTERMINATE,” says the Dalek.

“Oh, shut up,” says Donna, and whacks it with the crowbar.

***

The Dalek basks. Donna stares. The Doctor hoists the gun up on his hip, eyes blazing like a wildfire.

“Put it down,” Donna says, not turning. “Leave it alone. It isn’t hurting anyone. It just wants to _live_.”

The Doctor breathes, ragged and heavy, like he’s running, like he’s crying. “It tried to kill you, Donna,” he says, voice like molten steel. “You helped it and it tried to kill you, because that’s what it _does_. That’s what it _is_. It’s evil. It’s a monster. It does nothing but hate and kill, and I – “

Donna turns, eyes soft with compassion and reproach. “And you hate it. And you want to kill it.”

She takes a step forward, and he flinches away. “Donna,” he says, voice raw with desolation. “Don’t.”

“You need someone to stop you,” she murmurs, placing a hand on his arm. “I’m stopping you now, spaceman. Put. It. Down.”

 The Doctor is shaking. “I couldn’t save them,” he whispers. “I couldn’t save them, but I could end this, right now…”

“Oh, and why is that your job?” she snaps back. “What makes you so special?”

The Doctor says nothing. Donna keeps her hold on his sleeve. Slowly, slowly, he puts the gun down.

“EXCUSE ME,” says the Dalek, “DONNA NOBLE – “

“And you,” says Donna, reaching up to give the Doctor a much-needed hug, “Can just shut it for a moment.”

The Dalek shuts it.

***

“Barrage balloon,” Jack says, eyebrows arched high. “Really?”

“That accent,” Donna says, woozy. “Really?”

Jack chuckles, tightens his grip on her waist. Donna wants to shake him off but, well. At this moment, she’s seeing two of him. And they’re both rather fit, really.

“By the way,” says Donna, “Excellent bottom,” and passes out.

***

“Are you my mummy?”

“Kid, do I _look_ like a mother to you?”

“Donna. Hey. This is _really_ not the time.”

 “Well, _do I_?”

“If it helps, ma’am, I think you look lovely.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Hello? Gas mask zombies? London blitz? _Running_?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stupid apes.”

“Oi!”

***

The Daleks are back. Jack is dead. Down below, the Earth is burning.

Donna fights the urge to make a cup of tea.

She _might_ be in shock.

“Doctor,” she says, “hey.”

He grunts and yanks at a bundle of wires, viciously. She wants to hug him, but he probably needs his hands free right now. The whole planet probably needs his hands free.

“Just…” She hates how small her voice sounds, how childlike. She was supposed to be _brave_. “Just. Tell me everything’s going to be alright.”

He turns and looks at her, and for a second his eyes are blue like a clear sky and just as open, just as searching, just as lost. The moment passes and they cloud again. “Yeah, sure, Donna,” he says, tiredly. “Everything’s going to be fine. Just peachy. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.”

It stings, even though she knows it shouldn’t. He sighs. “Here,” he says, handing her a wire. “Take this into the TARDIS and plug it into the console, alright? I need to charge it up.”

She takes it without speaking and goes.

When the doors slam shut behind her, she’s not as shocked as she should be, but no less outraged.

***

“This is Emergency Programme One.”

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me.”

***

“Donna,” he says, gaping, “What?”

She steps out of the TARDIS, her hair like flame and her eyes burning gold. She waves a hand, and the Daleks turn to dust. She glows in the light from his ship, and burns, and burns, and _burns._

“I am the Bad Wolf,” she says, turning to him. “And _you_ are a great, big, outer-space _moron_.”

Later, when she falls, he know what he has to do.

“I have the feeling I’m really going to regret this,” the Doctor says, and kisses her.

***

“Wow, look at that _hair_. I’ve missed having hair. Nice thing, hair. Don’t you think, Donna? Hair? Hmm?”

“Doctor.”

“Yep?”

“You’ve… changed. You never told me you could change.”

“Nah, not _really_. Just my body, see. And… possibly…. Key parts of my personality. But I’m still the _same_ , you know. The same old happy-go-lucky….”

“Mmhm.”

There is a long silence. The new guy deflates, more than slightly, sags against the console.

“Yeah, alright. Home, then? I’ll see you back, nice and safe, let you get on with your, you know. Life.”

Donna gives him a scathing look.

“You. Are an _idiot_.”

“Ah. _Ah_. Well then. Allons-y, Donna Noble! Ooh, that’s a good word, allons-y. I need to say it more often.”

“Do you _heck_ , you numpty.”

***

One day, when they are drifting around a star, sipping tea:

“How long are you going to stay with me?”

“As long as you need me, spaceman.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

“No,” says Donna, planting her feet. “Absolutely not.”

The Doctor turns his eyes on her – sad, pleading eyes. For once, Donna’s pretty sure that she’s immune. “Donna, _please_.”

“No,” Donna says, again. “I said _no_ , spaceman, and that’s final. It’s not even about you,” she adds, gentler. “It’s about me, and my mum and my granddad, and my _life_. I have a _life_ here, in _this_ universe, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t understand. Donna, anything that’s been through the void – it’ll get sucked back in.” His fists are clenching, unclenching. She hates how much this is hurting him. “I have to risk it, to close the breach – but I can’t risk you. I _can’t_.”

Donna takes a quick look around; half of Torchwood seems to have gathered around them in a little Dalek-singed, gossipy bundle. She shoots them a glare until they trail off, muttering.

She closes her eyes in the newly-won silence and thinks. Then she opens her eyes and thinks some more. Her Doctor may be a genius, she knows, but he’s also an idiot. Nine out of ten impossible situations, there’s always something he’s missed. She would know. She’s counted.

 “What about the TARDIS?” asks Donna, cogs whirring. “Are you going to lose her, too?”

“Nah,” the Doctor mutters, absently. “She’s a multi-dimensional ship that exists across all of time and probably weighs more than this entire planet, plus she’s being kept four floors down. I think she’ll be fine.”

 Donna plants her hands on her hips, eyebrows rising. “I’m going to ask you a question, Doctor, and I want you to consider your answer _very carefully_.” She pauses until he looks at her, eyes full of trepidation. “Do you think,” she asks, slowly, deliberately, “that I weigh more than the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan?”

The Doctor gapes.

“Right then,” Donna says, walking briskly in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll just wait in the TARDIS, shall I?”

The Doctor gapes some more.

***

They meet Martha Jones in a hospital on the moon.

“You’re mad,” Martha says, eyes widening with delight. “Completely mad!”

“Too right,” Donna mutters. She glares at the Doctor as he hares off, barefoot, down the hall.

Donna heaves an aggravated sigh.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” she calls over her shoulder, running after him. “Come on!”

Martha does.

***

The Doctor kisses Martha, and Donna slaps him.

The Doctor lets a plasmavore drink his blood, and Donna lets Martha perform CPR before slapping him again.

When the Doctor offers Martha one thank-you trip, just one, honest, Donna slaps him a third time. “Don’t lead the poor girl on,” she snaps, righteously indignant. “Either she’s coming or she’s not.”

She looks Martha up and down. Lab coat, flat shoes, clearly a sensible woman. Definitely intelligent. Probably makes at least a decent cup of tea. Beautifully human, and wonderfully, _blessedly_ female. “You _are_ coming, aren’t you?” Donna adds, perhaps a tad too hopefully.

“Space travel, you said,” says Martha, slowly. “ _Time_ travel. Alright, then. Why not?”

Martha steps through the blue doors. Donna doesn’t know about the Doctor, but _she’s_ trying her darndest not to whoop.

“Welcome aboard, Miss Jones,” she says, grinning. Martha smiles back.

“A pleasure, Miss Noble.”

From the other side of the console, the Doctor’s ego makes a pained noise.

“And Mister Smith, obviously,” adds Martha, placating.

Donna smirks.

***

“So. William, huh? Who’d have thought? You and good old Billy Shakespeare!”

“Oh, _stop_ it!”

“Well, be fair, you could do worse.”

“Than _Shakespeare_? I don’t see how. His love poetry’s hopeless for one thing, and his _breath_ , ugh.”

The girls giggle. The Doctor heaves an aggravated sigh.

***

“You,” wheezes the Face of Boe, “Are not alone.”

Martha squeezes Donna’s hand. “Well,” she says, “that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it.”

***

1913….happens. It’s a not-exactly-pleasant blur of tea and uncomfortable undergarments and gender stereotypes, and Donna won’t be sad to see it go.

She’ll not miss the bobby pins, that’s for certain. Or the horrible ankle-length skirts. She’s definitely not going to feel nostalgic about bandaging up snotty little boys, and she really, _really_ isn’t going to miss being greeted by everyone as _Matron_.

And if she never sees Martha scrubbing another floor, or her Doctor _pining_ for her with those sad little puppy eyes, it’ll be too soon.

They have tea together every day, the two of them, those first two weeks. The Matron and the maid – there’d be whispers, amongst the staff, except that Martha’s too dignified to properly mock, and Donna had already told the other girls, in no uncertain terms, where exactly they could shove it.

In week number three, though, well.

“Do you,” Martha asks, uncharacteristically hesitant over the rim of her cup, “Do you and… are you two…?”

Donna chokes on her tea.

“What, me and him? No, no. Never.”

“Oh.” Her tone – quiet. Quiet, and envious, and a little bit bitter. “It’s just…. I see the way he looks at you. It’s obvious, now he’s human, but even before. He really – he really _looks_.”

Donna glances up, meets her eyes. “I see the way _you_ look at _him_.”

“Yeah, well,” mutters Martha, looking away. “Doesn’t matter, does it? I’m just the spare.” She stands, and the teacups clatter on the table. “Excuse me. I’ve got kitchens to clean.”

Martha isn’t there, next teatime, and in the hall, John Smith asks to walk her to supper. Donna thinks of supper in the TARDIS as they go, of her spaceman with his feet on the table, uninhibited, of her friend cooking omelettes and toast with no resentment or obligation. She wonders how it’ll be from now on, if it’ll be the same, now they’ve all seen their places at last and none of them are comfortable at all.

Donna won’t miss 1913, but she will miss the things it takes.

***

“Donna, I never said – thank you. For taking care of me.”

“Don’t mention it, spaceman.”

***

Jack runs. Martha gapes. The Doctor looks stricken and leaps for the controls.

Donna glares at him and sticks her foot in the door.

An hour later, all four are safely ensconced in a nice little tea shop near Cardiff Bay. Jack flirts shamelessly and Martha blushes crimson, and Donna smiles widely at them over a neat little stack of scones. The Doctor steals two or three and nicks all her clotted cream, and probably feels very pleased with himself.

On a planet at the end of the universe, an old professor dies a good man.

None of them will ever know.

***

Martha leaves them soon after, to no one’s surprise. The Doctor spins her around the console room and Donna hugs her tight, and she promises to keep in touch, no, really.

“We’ll miss you,” Donna says, as she goes, because they will.

“You don’t need me,” says Martha, smiling, a little sad. “But you know what, I spent a lot of time thinking I wasn’t any good – not just here, with you, but all my life, yeah? But then you showed me the whole _universe_ , and it’s so _big_! And I realized – everything’s just so small, but it’s all just _beautiful_ , you know? And so now I know – I am. Good. Good enough.”

“Martha Jones,” says the Doctor, practically shining with pride. “You are _fantastic_.”

“Thank you,” Martha says. Her head is high as she walks away.

***

They fly on their own for a bit. They go to Mars, Alpha Centauri, India in the 7th century. The TARDIS lands them in Pompeii and Donna presses the lever without hesitation, and the Doctor goes back without her having to ask. She spends the night smelling the ash on her clothes and wondering which of them is rubbing off on the other, if it matters, if she cares.

Martha calls them back, eventually. She’s joined Jack’s team and Jack’s life and Donna is proud of them in a disgustingly maternal way. The Doctor spends the whole adventure smashing glass and setting the sky on fire. None of them ask if this is meant to be symbolic.

They carry on. They meet Agatha Christie, they end a seven-day war. They drift through stars, hand in hand, together, alone.

They travel. They keep travelling, and it’s wonderful. They keep travelling, and it’s horrible. They keep travelling, and both of them try and believe that it’s never going to end.

***

It always ends.

***

“Turn right.”

_The sky is dark, and she’s tired, and the shops will be crowded this time on a Saturday night –_

“What – no. No. What are you doing? What is _that_?”

_And she ought to sleep, really. She ought to go home. She wants to go home._

“Turn right, and never meet that man.”

_Why did she want to go out in the first place?_

“Turn right, and change the future.”

Donna turns right.

***

The gold glow fades, and he’s – he’s still here. A new man, but still here, when everything else is gone.

Gallifrey is gone.

He pulls on black jeans, a black jacket. He shaves his head, because it feels harsh enough to be right. He avoids the mirrors. He avoids his eyes. He avoids the creeping feeling that he’s going to be alright, because he shouldn’t be, because he can’t. 

_Someday_ , _I’m going to get sick of second chances,_ thinks the Doctor, and, _maybe I need to find a new name_.

He sets his course for anywhere, anywhen. It doesn’t matter.

***

He lands in London, 2005. Right in the middle of an Auton invasion.

It feels wrong, it feels right.

***

He tracks the signal because that’s what he does, even though he doesn’t do anything anymore, and finds himself in the basement of a shop. There’s a girl there, another innocent, and he’ll save her because that’s what he hasn’t done, in too long a time.

The girl – she’s young. She’s blond. She’s scared.

It feels wrong, it feels right.

For a moment, the wrongness shakes him, and he expects broad shoulders and flaming hair and resistance. But then he’s come to expect this, hasn’t he, grown too used to fighting and things burning. Maybe that’s why that’s all he sees, wants to see, anymore, flames and burning hair.

The girl in front of him isn’t fire. She’s light, like the different spark in her eyes, and maybe he needs this, maybe he needs her.

It feels wrong, it feels right. It’s enough for him. He doesn’t know what he needs.

He slips his hand into hers and whispers, “ _Run._ ”


End file.
